5 ms·

There’s IoT as well. A lot of iot devices rely on gsm sms and low-speed data transmissions; that’s not easy to maintain over 4g/5g even for data only (no voice)

• stop50 2y ago
  The problem is not the protocol. Iot doesn't need even the voice channel. Gsm devices are simply cheap and work everywhere. 4g and 5g have often spots where no one has an antenna in reach.
  • toast0 2y ago
    That depends on deployment, but on a network that's trying to shut down 2G, I'd expect them to have updated most of their towers to 4g/5g already, with exceptions being where they only have enough spectrum to run the smallest possible block of 2G. 4G and 5G also opened up more frequencies, some higher and some lower; lower frequencies generally travel further so assuming spectrum is available to carriers, I would expect most towers, at least in areas with coverage problems, to start using new frequencies when they get upgraded to 4G. Certainly while carriers are building out, there will be pockets of coverage where older generation is better, but personally, I found I got better coverage once I was able to use 5G. I was in a good coverage area when I moved to 4G, so I remember that less for increased coverage and more for increased quality of service.
• ianburrell 2y ago
  There are LTE-M and NB-IoT for low power IoT on 4G. NB-IoT is for low bandwidth and super low power, LTE-M is for regular data but limited bandwidth. I think NB-IoT needs new gear on towers while LTE-M uses existing LTE. NB-IoT is lower power and wider coverage than GSM.
  • mikestew 2y ago
    But that doesn't do any good for existing 2G devices, does it?
  • alanfranz 2y ago
    But you need to upgrade tons of existing devices. That’s the issue.